I didn't get witness drunk, says O'Sullivan

Johannesburg - Forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan has hit back at a State witness who alleged he had bullied and plied him with alcohol to force him to testify against Czech businessman Radovan Krejcir.

Dr Marion Tupy filed a review application before the high court last month to have his guilty plea overthrown.

He claimed in the application that O’Sullivan had stolen Krejcir’s medical file from his office, had forged evidence, stolen a biopsy, got him so drunk that he didn’t know he was signing affidavits, and that O’Sullivan had set him up to sign a guilty plea when he thought he was getting indemnity from the State.

Tupy, a Roodepoort urologist, was the main witness in a medical fraud case against Krejcir that has been withdrawn. He signed a section 105 guilty plea for fraud and received a seven-year prison sentence, suspended for five years.

In that plea, Tupy said he had helped Krejcir fake bladder cancer in order to claim R4.5 million from Liberty Life.

Tupy now claims that Krejcir did have bladder cancer and O’Sullivan had set the case up in order to convict him. O’Sullivan denies this.

The security consultant has filed responding papers in which he denies all of Tupy’s claims and attaches a transcript from an alleged conversation the two men had in January last year during which they discussed a statement Tupy had signed on Krejcir.

During that conversation, the two men allegedly discussed men who Krejcir allegedly murdered, his business partners and what a bad state Tupy was in because of his alleged involvement with the Czech businessman. They also discussed how a man from national intelligence was watching over them.

The investigator also sent a complaint against Tupy to the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), where he attached the same transcript.

In the transcript, O’Sullivan said Tupy made reference to needing Valium.

“You will observe from the transcript that he has to be high on Valium before he can operate. Not sure that’s in the best interest of his patients though,” O’Sullivan wrote to the council.

The council responded to O’Sullivan, saying it was looking into the matter and had sent a copy of his complaint to Tupy for a response.

In Tupy’s court application, he demands that O’Sullivan return Krejcir’s original medical file and biopsy which he said O’Sullivan stole.

“I deny that I produced the medical files of Krejcir and more specifically deny that I was confronted to account as to how I came [to be] in possession of the files. I did not obtain the file through any unlawful means as alleged by the applicant,” O’Sullivan said.

He said Tupy handed him the medical file. He had kept the files and photocopied them.

O’Sullivan said he later returned the file to Tupy, who had then allegedly passed it on to Krejcir.

The investigator said he believed Tupy was facing pressure from Krejcir and was called into a hearing by the HPCSA so that he felt compelled to bring an account of what happened to the file and biopsy “that he allowed out of his control”.

“He has recanted and varied his evidence on numerous occasions, thus dispelling any degree of credibility,” he said.